Maman, Yaakov

Yaakov, son of Simcha (Farcha) and Chaim Maman, was born in 1927 in Fez, Morocco, and was the seventh of nine brothers. He bore the name of his grandfather Yaakov Maman, who immigrated to Jerusalem on foot with his wife in 1922. At the age of nineteen he immigrated to Israel. Yaakov boarded the illegal immigrant ship Yehuda Halevi – the first to carry illegal immigrants from North Africa. On May 31, 1947, the ship approached the shores of the country, but was surrounded by five British destroyers, two of them from Algeria. Some of them were pounded and British soldiers took over while spraying tear gas at the passengers. The ship was towed to the port of Haifa and the healthy immigrants, including Yaakov, were deported to a detention camp on Cyprus for illegal immigrants to Mandate Palestine. Within two months in Cyprus, Jacob was already fluent in Yiddish, a language he had learned from the immigrants from Europe. Ten months later, in April 1948, Yaakov arrived in Israel. About two weeks after his immigration to Israel, on April 21, 1948, he was drafted into the Palmach and sent to the village of Haruah to organize and train with additional soldiers from abroad. Yaakov fell in battle in Ma’ale Hachamisha on May 30, 1948, just seven weeks after his immigration to Israel. He was twenty-one when he fell.